


Stained

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Brother/Sister Incest, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Murder, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It has long been my suspicion that my brother has congress with my angelic sister.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>But Lucrezia wasn't anything like an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stained

_He’s killed me, just as you both wanted._

Alfonso’s voice rang in Lucrezia’s mind. Even as she staunched the wound with her hands, dabs of blood wet and sticky on her face, the words echoed over and over, back and forth: _just as you both wanted, you both wanted, you both, both, both._

It wasn’t true, she knew it wasn’t true, she hadn’t, not like this. Alfonso was saying something else she couldn’t quite make out, his speech too slurred, her thoughts too foggy. They drifted, slow and meandering, like the sheets of mist had been the night they threw all pretense aside. Not foggy enough—echoes, Echo, she had been Echo. Caltrops under Juan’s heels and Lucrezia, head full of her Narcissus then bent towards her Caesar, had laughed and laughed. Poor stupid Juan.

"It was an accident," Cesare said urgently, his voice cutting through fog and echoes alike. "Lucrezia, I swear, I didn’t mean to, he attacked me out of nowhere—"

She’d always known when he lied, little as she trusted her judgment now. He was holding something back, but the alarm and indignation in his eyes looked real, the panic in his voice. No grief, but why would there be? Lucrezia wished she could shake Alfonso, scream _is it true? why? how could you be so stupid?_

Stupid like Juan, threatening her baby in front of Cesare, in front of _her._ Either, both, it didn’t matter. Cesare’s hands had dealt the killing blow but she would have done it if he hadn’t. She’d already tried once, hadn’t she?

Hurrying over to Alfonso again, Lucrezia caught a glimpse of her blood-smeared face in the mirror, looked down at his bloody body. Had Juan’s whore looked like this when the chandelier pierced her? Was it any different, really? 

_An accident._ That was an accident. She hadn’t meant to kill that girl. She hadn’t meant Cesare to run his sword through Alfonso, _Cesare_ hadn’t meant to run his sword through Alfonso—perhaps. Certainly they hadn’t meant this terrible protracted anguish. 

I didn’t mean to kill her, she thought again, and _not like this._ She’d meant a different murder than the one she’d committed, and so her hands were clean—was that it? And Alfonso?

She’d complained that her husband was dangerous and incompetent and tiresome, complained to Cesare. Cesare, who killed as readily as he switched out one black coat for the next. Cesare, who at eighteen promised her another husband’s heart on a dinner plate, and years later handed her a knife covered in his blood, still treasured in her jewel-box. Cesare, who stabbed Juan (got to him first), for her sake as much as his own. And minutes from _I am tired of my husband,_ she’d announced that Alfonso reminded her of Juan. 

A warning. She must have meant it that way, for Alfonso. Not an invitation, surely, though she had looked at Cesare, though she had angrily wished Alfonso would just go away. Disappear quietly from her life as Juan had disappeared into the Tiber—wasn’t that what she had meant, truly? But not at Cesare’s hands, for they could only be extensions of her own. No pain, no scandal, no blood.

Not like this.

Lucrezia lifted a vial—her personal store of cantarella, carefully perfected—and measured the poison into Alfonso’s glass. It wasn’t the first time, not even the first since her return to Rome. Those rumours were truer than the others; Cesare still pushed her away, but there were always enemies, traitors, whispered threats to her family. She had not thought of it as murder, exactly. They all fought what battles they could. Cesare had his sword and daggers, she had her vials and ring.

But Cesare had done more with his weapons than fight in battle. And Lucrezia—she had killed and killed and killed, then fretted over the blood on Cesare’s hands, as if hers were unstained. As if she were something other than he was, different and separate. Yet the sameness under his skin and behind his eyes had enthralled her from the time she took her first toddling steps after him, his small hand catching her smaller one.

_Lucrezia Borgia?—poor boy! I am a Borgia. Only a Borgia, it seems, can truly love a Borgia. You’re a Borgia._

Was that all she could ever be? Another Borgia? Her father’s pitiless ambition cloaked in her mother’s graces? Absorbed in herself and her family, ruthless, cold and savage and insatiably greedy all at once, monstrous even in love? 

Another Cesare?

He watched, not far away; she felt rather than saw him, her brother and lover and shadowed reflection. But when she turned her head, she caught a glimpse of his anxious face in the mirror. Always her brother first. 

Lucrezia’s heart shuddered within her. She hurried past him, goblet in hand, tried to murmur something comforting, loving, as she tilted Alfonso’s head back, poured the poisoned wine down his throat. In a matter of seconds his gasping breath went silent, his face slack. Lucrezia felt his pulse anyway.

Gone, and she had done it. Not Micheletto; not some other assassin in the night, quiet and discreet; not even Cesare. _Her._

Lucrezia crumpled onto the bed.

Less than a minute later, she heard Cesare’s footsteps. Dimly, she had thought he might leave. He always left, always turned away, always…he was screaming, hands grasping at her, turning her back over. She lay, limp, scarcely hearing his ragged sigh of relief. But she felt the weight of his body, the brush of his fingers, as much as the blood tacky on her skin.

She thought of pushing him away. He had brought this on her, on them, his fault—but she had not the strength, even her smallest fingers felt an impossible weight. And still, she did not want him to go. If he left her now—if he—she couldn’t do this alone, not again, never again. 

Then he was gone, but only for an instant; a damp cloth dabbed at her neck. Cesare was washing Alfonso’s blood away.

"You will be naked, and clean, and bloodless again," he whispered, breath at her brow, hands soothing her, even now. Lucrezia’s lips parted, head tilting towards his and then back, letting Cesare’s mouth drift down her cheek, welcoming the press of his face into her neck.

_Mine._

She had never been bloodless.


End file.
